


Stargazing

by Marchtwentysixes



Category: Naruto
Genre: Character Study, Constellations, Everything is Beautiful and Nothing Hurts, Gen, Introspection, Post-Canon, Stargazing, okay maybe some things never stop hurting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-17
Updated: 2019-06-17
Packaged: 2020-05-13 19:23:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19257598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marchtwentysixes/pseuds/Marchtwentysixes
Summary: Sasuke looks at the starry heavens above him and the moral law within him. Sakura helps.





	Stargazing

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! this piece started out initially as an observation about the Ursa Major constellation I made at 3 A.M. standing alone on my terrace as the skies of New Delhi miraculously cleared up to let a few stars through, and spun out of control soon after.  
> All characters belong to dear ol' Kishi and all mistakes belong to me. Concrit is welcome! enjoy :D

Some days, his heart feels so heavy it can burst.

He knows of the strength that resides in him. He knows just how deeply it runs through his veins- the power of his Clan. He feels it, the rush, the surge of it, how it awakens inside him and makes him powerful, makes him strong, makes him _dangerous_.

And yet, some days, all it takes is the sound of metal through ice, or wind blowing across an empty street, and Sasuke’s blood freezes.

It happens right now too, as he lays under a moonless sky.

 Sakura slumbers across from him, worn from her travels. She had sworn that their paths intercepting had been a complete coincidence, had even smiled bashfully at how _surreal_ it was that they’d _both_ been tasked to trail the Hidden Mist’s missing-nim.

Sasuke lets it slide, like he did when Naruto had turned up, just as ‘coincidentally’ a month ago, while he’d been travelling through Sunagakure.

It seemed that both, the Hokage and the Kazekage, were easily bent to the will of his friends.

As the sun set low, they’d made small talk over dinner, about their journeys, their findings. Sakura had animatedly told him about how she’d recently discovered that Kakashi was _intentionally_ using her specific brand of shampoo to bathe Pakkun, as even after she’d changed it thrice over the past year, the Ninken almost always managed to smell like her.

Sasuke looks at her sleeping form. She’d looked happy, cast in the warmth of their campfire. Now, the night colours her a soft blue, and she looks…peaceful.

He doesn’t know when sleep takes him, but he hears it, as if from a distance. Hears _him_ , low and clear, and he knows he’s dreaming.

‘ _Do you see that constellation over there?’ Itachi is staring out into space, his fingers trace the distant stars, spinning them into shapes. Sasuke looks at his brother, at the lights in his eyes, and turns to look where he’s pointing._

_It’s so rare, to have his brother sit beside him, to be talking to him._

_The two speak in hushed whispers, voices low so as to not disturb their sleeping parents._

_Itachi leans against a pillar in the courtyard, Sasuke leans against him. It is peaceful and oh-so-quiet, as if the entirety of Konoha, of the Fire Country, of the Universe, has come to a stand-still, to hear what his dear older brother has to say._

_‘The one that looks like a spoon?’ Sasuke asks, his voice sounds so miniscule, so small compared to Itachi’s. His brother laughs, a low, breathy sound, that makes Sasuke’s heart swell._

_‘Yes, that crooked spoon-looking constellation. It’s called by many names, ‘The Great Dipper’, ‘The Big Bear’, ‘Ursa Major’, but the one I like the most is ‘Saptarishi’- which means ‘The Seven Sages’, do you see? There’s seven stars, each representing a sage. Their names are Vishwamitra-’_

_He loves this, how much joy his brother gets from telling him stories, the way his entire face transforms into something soft and free of worry. Even as he thinks this, Sasuke can feel sleep closing in on him._

_His world shrinks; down from the stars and the skies, reducing to the coolness of the night breeze and the steadying warmth of his brother beside him._

‘ _Sasuke, are you falling asleep on me? Do you want me to tell you the rest of the story?’ yes! of course he wants that! he wants Itachi to continue, to tell him about the sages and the bears and everything in between, but everything around him is too soft, too still, and he’s about to-_

_‘Nevermind, Sasuke. Maybe next time.’ He hears the smile in his brother’s voice, and his world fades into the dark._

Sasuke bolts upright. Beside him, Sakura stirs in her sleep.

He takes a deep breath, willing his heart to stop racing. He feels it within him, a deep disquiet. It’s nothing new, he’s felt it before, several times. But that was when there was disquiet around him too, far louder and overpowering and _real_ than the disquiet inside him, and so he’d been able to overlook it.

Now, however, the world around him is still, the silence stretched taunt as a bowstring. It’s almost suffocating, and it isn’t until he senses Sakura rouse into wakefulness that he realises he’s crying.

‘Sasuke-kun?’ Sakura asks, and she’s moving to comfort him until she visibly refrains, hands outstretched, eyes furrowed in worry, voice scarcely louder than whisper. She withdraws, and he hears his heart beat in his ears.

He looks at her, really looks, into her eyes; past the worry, past the hesitation, and he sees them- the stars, reflected in their jade depths.

His breath catches, then, and he looks deeper still. Past the stars, past the green, he sees concern, and all of a sudden it seizes him, the urge to reassure her, to not cause her any more worry.

‘I’m okay, Sakura. I just…was dreaming.’ He forces himself to sit upright, across him Sakura sits straighter too, her blanket slipping off her shoulders.

‘May I ask what it was about?’ she asks, and he hates how formal she sounds, how unwelcome she must feel speaking to him. He absolutely hates it, but it’s not hate like he knows it- burning, crackling, blistering. This hate is colder- it seeps through his bones and renders him frozen. He wouldn’t have been able to tell them apart a few months ago, a few days ago, but now, he knows the difference. One kind of hate made him burn bonds and cut ties and coloured his days in red.

The _other_ hate, it made him _crave_ \- crave closeness, crave peace, crave _normalcy_. It forced him to turn himself inside out, to tear out the worst things he ever did, the worst he ever thought, the worst he ever said, and it forced him to _repent_ , knowing he could _never_ have any of those, knowing he didn’t _deserve_ them.

‘Sakura,’ he says, and its somehow even quieter than her question, ‘I dreamt about my brother.’

She looks at him, a little shell-shocked at his response, and shakes herself out of her stupor -literally- with a shake of her head, and Sasuke is so _endeared_ by it.

‘Oh, okay, was it…a _nice_ dream?’ she asks, sitting a little more relaxed, palms settling into the soft grass that grows around their campsite.

‘It was more of a…memory, I think, from when I was very young, before I’d joined the academy even.’ Sakura nods, turning to face him a little more evenly, drawing her blanket closer. Her arms are pimpled with goose-flesh.

Sasuke feels his lungs open up a little, his breathing even out, almost as if Sakura’s growing ease has been transferred onto him.

‘It was a night very much like this one, no moon in sight, and Ita-‘, he pauses, swallowing a little before uttering his brother’s name out loud again. How many times had he spat it out, how many times had he discredited it, _loathed_ it, filled it with venom?

 _Itachi_.

 _Brother_.

‘- _Itachi_ was telling me about the stars. He loved talking about them. He knew all the constellations in the night sky, and he’d _read_ about them, their stories, their mythology…some nights, he’d show them to me.’ With every word, Sasuke saw Sakura’s expression soften.

He couldn’t remember the last time he had talked about his brother; about his mannerisms, his hobbies. He’d always been so vocal about his admiration, always so appreciative of whatever his elder brother would do. Had it really been _that_ long?

Talking about him now, under the stars, with Sakura, Sasuke feels _something_ stir within him, something that isn’t hate or remorse, something that isn’t rejection or jealousy.

For the first time in a long time, Sasuke feels… _mundane_.

He feels like he could’ve been anyone, sitting in a field and looking at the stars, talking about the stories his brother had told him. Mundane, like a man with his whole life ahead of him- a life driven not by destiny or promises made in fire and blood, a life with simpler choices and lower stakes.

He smiles wistfully. In the corner of his eye, Sakura mirrors it.

‘Do you see that constellation, the one shaped like a spoon?’ he inquires, and Sakura takes her eyes off of him, _a little too slow, a little too reluctantly_ , and looks fully to where he gestures.

‘I see it.’ She replies, and all Sasuke hears is _Sakura_ , standing at the gate asking him to _stay_ ,

 _Sakura_ in the Forest of Death, _pleading_ with him to wake up,

 _Sakura_ , _familiar_ to him, familiar in the bond they’d once shared, the one he’d thought he’d broken,

the one he’d thought he could never get back.

He looks at her, bathed in star-light, _iridescent_ , and he feels her acceptance wash over him, gentle, forgiving.

‘Well, it’s known by a lot of names, there’s one with a Bear, there’s one…a h-hearse-? I can’t remember anymore, he’d told me about it, how his favourite story was…about seven sages…?’ He tries to remember, but with every second, his brother’s words grow more distant. He stops talking then, and stares instead at the ground.

How could he hope for forgiveness? How could he wish for normalcy? How could he think he’d be at peace when there’s so much _hurt_ he’d caused, so much hurt that was still inside him? He felt his despair, _gnawing_ at the inside of his stomach, and he almost gave into it, almost,

but then Sakura spoke, and he listened.

‘The _Saptarishi_ , or the Seven Sages, were wise and kind. They wrote a lot of books, about _knowledge_ and _duty_ and the ‘ _way of life’_ , but one of the myths talks about how they are guardians, protecting the world against disease and famine. Of the Seven that you see, the one at the head of the constellation is _Vaishishtha_ , and beyond it is a faint star, _barely_ there, do you see it? It flickers so you need to look closely. That is _Arundhati’s_ star. She’s _Vaishishtha’s_ consort. Together they form the _Mizar_ _double_.’

Sakura speaks with her whole body, hands moving animatedly, toes wiggling under the sheets, hair fluttering ever-so-often, eyes flitting; from the sky, to him, to the sky again.

Another story-teller, then.

Is this what it felt like, to not be made of hatred? To be loving and _forgiving_? To be here, with the man who was _barely_ a friend, _barely_ a teammate, _barely_ a companion, and still help him piece together a half-forgotten dream?

‘Sasuke, I think I know why your brother showed you this constellation.’ Her voice is low, but it rings with clarity, and Sasuke can tell that these are words she _wants_ him to hear.

‘It’s one of the _first_ constellations one learns. It’s easy to spot, and is used as a guide to other stars, to directions, to latitudes and longitudes.’ She’s facing him again, and her gaze burns with something fierce, fiercer, even, than the stars.

Her shoulders are bare again, but she radiates warmth.

‘It’s the constellation you learn about at the _very_ beginning, the constellation that forms the basis for an _entire_ field of knowledge, that ensures you _never_ get lost on your travels, that allows you to find your destination. It’s a constellation of firsts.’ She smiles at him, and he feels lighter than he has in days, in _years_.

He sits there for a while, dumbfounded.

How had she done that? How good of a Medical-nim was she, to have quelled the disquiet in his heart?

His mind flickers, to when Naruto lay beside him, talking about how it hurt him to see his friends take on the world alone, to his grin as the sun rose higher around them, to Sakura’s sobs as she healed them both.

He remembers Kakashi’s concern as he sealed off Orochimaru’s curse, his sorrowful smile as he tells him about all that he loved and lost.

He remembers Itachi, so full of life and love.

For as long as he can remember, he’s felt he as if he were being left behind. He’s told Naruto as much. He’s always been chasing something, following in the steps- of his brother, of his friends. He’s always been so caught up, in all that existed before him, that existed beyond him.

Who was Uchiha Sasuke _without_ his clan? Who was he beyond his quest for revenge, _then_ for retribution, _then_ for repentance?

Where did _his_ dreams lie? What was _his_ purpose?

Where did _his_ identity begin?

All of a sudden, he sees what Sakura has been trying to show him, what his brother had tried to show him, all those years ago.

How many moonless nights had passed in between? It didn’t matter, now that he finally understood.

A constellation of firsts, was it?

He’d been so caught up in what _had_ been, in what _should’ve_ been, that he had turned a blind eye to what he had. He’d been so _frugal_ with his love, his admiration, his loyalty.

 All his life, he’d been preparing himself for what he _thought_ was his destiny. First it had been Itachi, then, Naruto.

But _Itachi_ had his loyalty to Konoha, to his brother.

 _Naruto_ had his dream of becoming Hokage, of being acknowledged by his comrades.

Now, it’s time he chose for himself; the first of _his_ dreams, the first of _his_ aspirations.

Sakura is looking at him cryptically. What is she thinking about? What does she dream about? He wants to ask, but perhaps it is a little too soon.

It’s still new, this thing between them; still _raw_ and _fresh_.

He vows to ask her, perhaps a few moonless nights from now.

Perhaps then she’ll tell him.

But for now, he accepts her silence.

‘Thank you, Sakura-chan, for telling me that.’ He wants to tell her how grateful he is for what she has just told him. He has a sudden urge, then, overpowering, overwhelming and _alarming_ , to ask her if she loves him, or if she had _ever_ loved him.

He bites down on it, perhaps because he knows that whichever way she answers his question, he won’t be able to survive it.

So, he decides to look at her, at the barely-concealed happiness she shines with, and he decides that he can live a thousand lifetimes and _still_ not deserve her love,

or Naruto’s,

or Itachi’s.

But it has never been about what he deserves, never about what he has asked from them.

It is about what _they’ve_ chosen to _give_ : and they’ve given him forgiveness, they’ve given him love, they’ve given him acceptance,

And they’ve given him the stars,

And no matter what it takes, Sasuke will find his way to them.

 ***


End file.
